Reviews of Elephant House

Below are independent comments from 5 of our travellers who have visited Elephant House, and have kindly agreed to share their thoughts.

They do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa.

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Mr N & Mis R - Scotland

Arrived on: 15-Nov-2014 Stayed for: 5 nights

Overall:

Excellent

Location:

Excellent

Rooms:

Excellent

Service:

Excellent

Food:

Excellent

Activities:

Excellent

Facilities:

Excellent

Great Location

Elephant House was an amazing place. We stayed here for 5 nights. Excellent staff and service. If you needed anything someone was available to help you. The room was very clean, spacious and everything you would want was there. The meals were very very good, the set 3 course evening meal was excellent. We never looked at the menu we just waited to see what was served to us. All meals were all home cooked, no fancy trimmings, excellent. The area around Elephant House was well kept and very quiet.

Every morning when we went to go to our car, someone had the exterior cleaned for us. There were plenty of seating areas around the hotel if you wanted to sit down, chill out and have a beer or read a book.

Absolutely amazing place, quiet, relaxing. The place looked and felt really old and colonial, but the owner told me he started the build process 16 years ago, and it is an ongoing process. I advised him not to change anything about the hotel, it was amazing. I would love to go back and stay there again. Thank you so much for our excellent 5 night stay.

Elephant House review

This was our last hotel - beautiful place. Room was huge and perfect for a family. Well located for Addo.

We didn't eat in each evening but went to a local restaurant and then to the Schotia Safari (which came with dinner).

Elephant House was a bit deserted (very few guests) and staff hard to track down. Lack of tea and coffee in the room was a bit disappointing - it was provided when asked but it would have been nice to have it in the room. Breakfasts were nice but not as extensive as the other places we stayed (all the others had a buffet option). We also had to cross over to another site - which was fine but felt a bit odd. We asked for laundry service but they forgot. Check out was also odd - took ages to find someone so we could pay!

Safari organised by Elephant House was great and they recommended we did the Schotia evening safari which was tremendous.

We have been in touch with Elephant House immediately after receiving this traveller’s feedback. Clive, the owner and manager, responded swiftly with a very concerned response.

He apologised for the poor experience the guests had experienced, commenting that Elephant House prides itself on delivering a friendly and hospitable stay to all their travellers. He has investigated the issues raised, replacing the light bulbs and checking that the shower-head in the room was unblocked. Clive made the point that had the guests bought these issues to his attention at the time, he would have done his best to sort them out immediately.

(We’d like to echo this point: it’s always vital for our travellers to clearly voice problems at the time, as it’s only then that we have a real chance to solve them properly!)

It seems clear from his response to us, as well as our own experience inspecting Elephant House, that what this traveller describes is not normal here! However, Clive comments that as part of their on-going upliftment work with the disadvantaged local communities, they are currently employing local student interns – who are just learning about the hospitality industry, and what guests expect. Hence it’s possible that one or two members of staff we’re not as ‘switched-on’ to the traveller’s needs as is usual for his team.

As a gesture of goodwill, and by way of apologizing for the experience they had, Clive has kindly offered to refund these travellers for their meals and drinks whilst at Elephant House.

We have always believed that acting responsibly is the only way to approach tourism and we're one of
the few companies to hold AITO's original coveted 5-star status for responsible tourism. It's a lead
that others are now following.